The desire to determine accurately the location of wireless devices is being driven in part by regulatory forces. In June 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated support for enhanced 911 (E-911) service with planned phased implementations by the first decade of the 21st century.
A common method of locating a device is to determine the amount of time it takes for signals transmitted by known sources to reach the receiver of the device to be located. One such source of transmitted signals is known as the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system as shown in FIG. 1. The GPS system relies on a constellation of 24 satellites (plus other spare satellites) circling the earth every 12 hours at an altitude of 20,200 km. Each GPS satellite transmits a unique message which identifies its position at a particular time. In addition, each GPS satellite transmits unique binary ranging codes which allow the GPS receiver to discriminate the various satellites in view and to obtain the apparent range (“pseudo range”) between each satellite and the receiver. Multiple GPS signals at any particular time can serve as reference points to determine the location of a device. By measuring the distance from at least four GPS satellites, the GPS receiver within a device can triangulate its position anywhere on the earth. The device's location is calculated by measuring the time required for the GPS signals to travel from the GPS satellites to the device. Typically, four pseudo range measurements from four GPS satellites are sufficient to determine the location of the device. Additional pseudo range measurements may be needed depending on the GPS receiver's time alignment accuracy. Each pseudo range measurement contains partial position information for calculating the device location.
One conventional method estimates a position for a particular time using M pseudo range values determined from M GPS satellites at that particular time. For a stationary device, this estimation is repeated at N sequential time intervals to derive N position estimates over the N time intervals. The N position estimates are then processed to determine the estimated position fix of a device. The processing technique can incorporate Kalman filtering, maximum likelihood estimation, weighted averaging, unweighted averaging, and variations of the above-mentioned processing techniques known to one skilled in the art. However, since each of these processing techniques uses computed position estimates to determine a filtered position, there is an inherent difficulty with outlier removal which can result in a less accurate (i.e., more erroneous) position determination estimate. It would be easier to filter out outliers if pseudo range values were processed directly prior to position determination since in the “raw” pseudo range format, outliers are more apparent. An outlier is an aberrant measurement which is statistically inconsistent with other measurements. For example, the GPS receiver is susceptible to occasional measurement outliers.
In addition, when position estimates are processed to determine position, accurate signals from at least four GPS satellites are needed to fully determine position. In the event there are more than at least four in-view GPS satellites (i.e., the measurement is over-determined), then measurement integrity monitoring can be performed. Measurement integrity monitoring is the process of ensuring the validity of a set of GPS measurements, which may be achieved by checking the validity of each particular range measurement (taking measurement values in turns) against the position computed based on the remainder of the measurements (i.e., the set excluding the chosen measurement). However, if there are not enough GPS measurements to give an over-determined solution of position determination, then measurement integrity monitoring cannot be performed easily to determine which measurement is inaccurate.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for providing device position determination with improved outlier removal. Additionally, it would be desirable to perform some form of measurement integrity monitoring even in the event when the GPS measurements do not give an over-determined solution of position determination. The methods and apparatus disclosed herein satisfy these needs.